Although Lamar residents encountered snow and winds and downed tree limbs, compared to other areas of Prowers County, we got our moisture, but not all that much snow.

Mounds of Trash Should be Collected by May 3rd

Springfield and other southern Colorado communities had anywhere from 10 inches of snow to 7.5 as reported in Campo by the National Weather Service and from four to six inches around the Holly area. Lamar started out with some accumulation but the remainder of the snowy Saturday didn’t stick to the surface. Garden City, Kansas to our east was clobbered with heavy snows to the point that Amtrak service from Lamar was delayed for almost a half a day and for a while the entire city was without power service.

As many as 10,000 Pueblo residents were without electricity as well. Outages throughout the county ranged from two to nine hours as crews from Lamar Light and Power had to trace downed power lines or remove tree limbs that also interrupted service. Roads leading to and from Lamar were also closed for a while as semi trucks were parked along Highway 287 south, filling the lots at North Love’s and Walmart or at the Lamar Truck Plaza, waiting for the roads to be cleared. An estimated 14 inches of snow fell around the Elkhart, KS area and along the Kansas-Colorado border.

Semi’s Waiting for the Road to Clear on 287

Some 30 to 35 brave souls still showed up for duty Saturday morning to help Lamar Public Works crews for the scheduled city-wide clean-up day. Pat Mason, Lamar Public Works Director commented, “I was really surprised to see so many people volunteer to help out in this weather. We must have had three dozen, but we stopped the pick-up service at 11am.” Mason said instead of relying on volunteers again this Saturday, his staff will continue the pick-up service through the week. “I expect we’ll be done by Wednesday,” he stated. Mason added that for those residents who have more fallen tree limbs from the storm, residents need to drag those out to the edge of the street as soon as they can. Mason remarked, “Don’t leave them in the alleyways. They’ll just stay there. People need to get them out to the edge of their yards along the streets and we’ll remove them from there.”